Playoff expansion under "serious consideration"

What would a larger playoff look like?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke in New York on Tuesday night, and he said expanding the playoffs to seven teams per conference is seriously under consideration.

“That is under serious consideration,” he said. “We think it’s one of the great things about the NFL, besides the fact that it’s unscripted. Every team and their fans start the season with hope. You mentioned the fact that for 11 straight years we’ve had a team go from last to first, that’s unique to professional football and the NFL, that doesn’t happen in other sports. And that’s because we have such a competitive league and we want to keep that.”

In the AFC, adding a seventh team this season would have put the Pittsburgh Steelers, playing the Patriots. In the NFC, the 10-6 Arizona Cardinals would have played the Panthers. Do we really need these games?

Would you watch it? Of course. It’s football. We watch college linemen run sprints in late February under the guise of it being football-related. It doesn’t mean it’s good for the game.

It’s about making a major change to get to the postseason. It’s about increasing the likelihood of any team making the playoffs from 37.5 percent to 43.75 percent. Will including those extra games make the game more competitive or wild card weekend any more exciting?

It will be tough to top what happened last weekend. Instead, it will force a team who has fought to earn a playoff bye to face a team who earn the berth by the skin of its teeth. It’s taking away the opportunity for a team who has won plenty of games to get healthy for the grind of the playoffs.